Are there any other desktop remote control applications for Windows other than PCAnywhere that can connect to and control the PC directly over serial or USB connections?

Clarification: I am looking for software that can be installed on Windows machines that I administer that will allow me to establish a remote desktop session over a null modem serial cable connected between the two machines.

Just to be clear... do you mean software that must first be installed while you have normal access to the machine you want to control remotely? Or are you asking about software that will allow you to somehow gain control of a random computer, just by connecting a serial or USB cable and running the program?
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Bon GartJun 12 '12 at 13:46

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It is for a machine that I administer. I'm trying to avoid PCAnywhere. Yes, PCAnywhere allows serial connections, not quite sure about usb. Edit: Apparently you can use it with TCP over USB.
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PleXJun 12 '12 at 13:47

@PleX: It's understandable that you want to avoid that product. But please don't assume people know it. If you're looking for a specific feature, explain that feature.
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Oliver Salzburg♦Jun 12 '12 at 13:51

@Oliver, I thought I did in the original question?
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PleXJun 12 '12 at 13:53

1 Answer
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"At present we just use TCP/IP, because it's convenient, ubiquitous, and easy to route. This means that you can use VNC over anything which supports TCP/IP, so using it over a modem is just the same as any other network, once you have Dial-Up Networking set up. If you need to communicate directly between two machines without going via the internet/intranet, then set up a remote access server on one and dial in from the other."

In other words, set up your null modem cables and run as if you were dialing up; any TCP/IP based solution should then work.
As I understand it, this is essentially how PCA does it's serial connections it just hides the setup.

Another alternative would be to use a KVM-over-Cat5 solution, the kind that has a transceiver at each end & use cheap CAT-5 for cabling instead of proprietary KVM cables (allows for far longer runs as well).